GATINEAU – Should access to the inside wiring of commercial or institutional buildings be expanded? The Commission wants to hear about it.
Responding to a complaint from Bell ExpressVu that Rogers Cable was keeping the satellite company out of hospitals, nursing homes, hotels and other buildings the cableco wired, the CRTC Monday issued a call for comments on “possible regulatory amendments that would expand competitive access to inside wire,” said the Commission.
ExpressVu said section 10 of the Broadcasting Distribution Regulations covers properties of the type mentioned above and if not, they should be.
No way, says Rogers. The MSO said…
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GATINEAU and DARTMOUTH – The CRTC announced today it approved the sale of CIZZ-FM and CKGY-FM in Red Deer, Alberta by Corus Entertainment to Newcap Inc.
The $8.4 million transaction is expected to close within 60 days.
"The completion of this purchase is very significant to Newfoundland Capital," said Rob Steele, president and CEO of NCC, in a release. "It represents an opportunity to provide our customers with even greater coverage in the province".
Newcap has a strong presence in Alberta, already serving 22 communities there. Red Deer is the third largest city in Alberta and is an important…
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GATINEAU – The CRTC today called for comments on adding five foreign third language services to the eligible satellite list.
The Commission issued the notice today after receiving requests from the Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association and Rogers to add NTV Bangla, Azteca 13 International, TV Chile, TVE Internacional and Canal de las Estrellas Latinoamérica to the list of eligible satellite services for distribution on a digital basis.
NTV Bangla is a 24-hour general interest service offering a variety of programming including news, current affairs, sports, documentaries, comedies, movies, serial dramas, and children’s entertainment with 98% of its programming in…
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OTTAWA – The CRTC has licensed all three applications for pay radio services in Canada, opening the industry to unprecedented competition and consumer choice.
However, the services will be heavily regulated, unlike their progenitors in the United States. The commission imposed what could be seen as onerous Cancon requirements on the two satellite services: SIRIUS Canada and Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. (CSR). The terrestrial-based service owned by CHUM and Astral Inc. was approved as filed and will have to follow existing regulations for conventional radio (such as having at least 35% Cancon for popular music).
The Commission is requiring CSR and…
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OTTAWA – “Why did we find that VOIP is a telephone service? Because Canadians use it as a telephone service,” CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen said today at the Commission’s headquarters upon the release of its voice over Internet decision.
The decision confirmed what the Commission had said previously: that it would continue to regulate VOIP when it is provided and used as a local telephone service.
That means incumbents like Bell and Telus will continue to have to file rate tariffs with the Commission for approval – to make sure predatory pricing below cost doesn’t happen – while the…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – TV distribution newcomer Manitoba Telecom Services had its complaint over Shaw Cablesystems distribution of certain channels denied today by the CRTC.
But that doesn’t mean the rules aren’t about to change, again.
In August 2004 MTS, which operates a DSL-delivered digital television product in Winnipeg, asked the Commission for an expedited mandatory order, under section 12(2) of the Broadcasting Act, saying Shaw was violating the distribution and linkage (D&L) rules.
MTS complained that in and around Winnipeg, Shaw has been offering certain discretionary services (Family Channel and the U.S. superstations KTLA Los Angeles, WGN-TV Chicago, WPIX New…
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OTTAWA-GATINEAU – The run-down transmitter serving the 2,000 people in Saint Fulgence, Quebec, must stay, the CRTC ruled today.
Cogeco Inc.-controlled broadcaster TQS had petitioned the Commission for the removal of transmitter CKTV-TV-1 Saint-Fulgence, which broadcasts CKTV Saguenay (an affiliate of CBC’s French-language sister, SRC), on the grounds that the site needed extensive repairs and that most people in the region were already getting the TV signal by cable and satellite anyway.
The Commission denied the application by TQS inc. to remove the transmitter from its license.
TQS told the Commission that its agreement with the CBC, “per se…
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Terrion currently building a multi-carrier tower in Nanaimo
By Ahmad Hathout
Telus executives said Friday that they are confident the telco can compete on its suite of services in light of Bell’s entrance in the internet market out west.
“We are obviously supportive of competition,” Executive Vice President and CFO Doug French said on the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call on Friday. “We still want to obviously win in retail, and our bundling and our product superiority will continue to compete well there.”
The comments came after Bell announced last month that it was going to wholesale Telus fibre and…
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By Ahmad Hathout
The head of Quebecor on Thursday excoriated the federal government’s decision to up CBC/Radio-Canada’s annual funding while not forcing it out of commercial advertising sales.
The Liberals allocated an additional $150 million to the public broadcaster’s annual appropriation, which was a pre-election commitment from Prime Minister Mark Carney, but did not push it out of those ad sales for which private television broadcasters compete.
“Regrettably, this new government has missed an opportunity to support an industry facing ever-growing challenges and job losses at an alarming rate,” Pierre Karl Peladeau, president and CEO of Quebecor, said during…
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By Ahmad Hathout
Bell’s president and CEO said Thursday that the telco is targeting the new year for the full launch of fibre-based internet service for its mobile wireless customers in western Canada.
Mirko Bibic said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call that Bell already has a trial in Kelowna, British Columbia for fibre internet service using Telus’s network, and that the telco is targeting January for a full launch.
“We are going to do all this in a very disciplined way,” Bibic said.
During its investor day conference last month, Bell said it was launching the service this…
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